Hard Disk Gone Missing?
After booting from the Windows XP setup CD the blue setup screen appears and goes the through the usual process of installing it’s drivers.
When you reach the Welcome Screen and choose to install Windows you are presented with the error “Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer” similar to the screenshot below.
Some Common Symptoms
- You are presented with the error message: Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer at the point in the setup where you are asked to press ENTER to “setup Windows XP now”
- You are presented with the error message Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer after pressing ‘R‘ to “repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console”
Explanation
This error will appear most often when your hard disk is on an SATA or SCSI controller and Windows setup does not have a suitable driver.
In most cases these days you won’t have a floppy disk either to load the drivers.
There are a few ways to deal with this ranging from the very simple (hopefully says you!) to the long and somewhat difficult. See the solutions below for more.
Solution 1 – Set Your SATA Controller to Compatability/IDE/Standard Mode
- Enter your BIOS/Setup Utility
- Locate the Serial ATA or SATA configuration section
- I’ve seen this section called ‘On Chip Config’ on some Phoenix Award BIOS
- On Lenovo/IBM ThinkPads it’s in Config > Serial ATA (Sata)
- Change the mode of the SATA controller from AHCI to IDE or Compatibility
- Save & Exit
- Reboot and begin the Windows Setup again.
- If Windows Setup successfully detects your hard disk this time then go ahead and perform the Windows Setup.
- When Windows setup completes change the mode back to AHCI in the BIOS
- If your problem still exists after changing this option then change it back to AHCI and proceed to Solution 2 below.
Solution 2 – Load your SATA drivers using a Floppy Disk (or CD)
UPDATE JAN 2011 – Create A Custom Windows XP CD with your SATA drivers as an alternative to using a floppy disk. If you need help finding your SATA drivers see the article How To Find Your SATA Drivers
- If you already have a floppy disk drive in your computer then great, proceed to Step 2. If you don’t, click here to get one
- Go to either your computer manufacturers support website or if you have a custom build then go to your mainboards manufacturers support website and download the SATA driver package. Some popular manuafacturers are listed below:
- Extract the downloaded driver to a blank floppy disk
- DO NOT insert the floppy disk into the computer that you are attempting to run Windows Setup on
- Insert your Windows XP CD and start your computer, press any key to boot from CD if requested
- As soon as the blue setup screen appears press F6 on your keyboard. The message to press F6 will disappear and be replaced by a message requesting you to press F2 for ASR. Do NOT press F2.
- After the “Setup is loading files” part is complete you will be presented with the screen below
- Insert the floppy disk you created and press S to Specify Additional Device. Windows will load your driver and you can now continue Windows Setup as normal.
Older comments
you have saved me loads of money. I was almost buying a new hard drive. Thanks loads loads
Hey Kelvin…glad a saved you a load of money….feel free to give it to me
Don’t thin hard drives cost a lot these days anyway….I would think it saves hassle more than money….all that transferring of data, reinstalling windows…what a pain eh.
Thanks for stopping by http://www.proposedsolution.com
Rosco
you are number 1
Thank you for posting this!
You’re welcome Edin. Glad it worked for you.
R.
Kinda shocked I’ve never ran into this problem before. Thanks. Changing the SATA to “Raid/ATA” on a dell worked for me.
Lenovo Think Pad … solved at step 1 … Many thanks ..
i am trying the first step…but when i couldn’t located AHCI to IDE or Compatibility. I found AHCI in the bio, but when i click on AHCI, there is no option for me to change to IDE. my laptop doesn’t have a floppy disk hard drive.
plz help…what else can I do?Thanks in advance.
Hi Ktt, What’s your make/model of laptop?
thanx you so much!! it work on my ASUS laptop!! so much time to research on how to fixed this kind of problem…. thank you so much!!!
Worked for me! Thank you
well not worked for me
have tried but i cant get the option of sata drives.. system bios are shadowed.. how to change this??
ktt i tried simple:i disabled achi and there is all right,try that
this is cool, thank you dear, it works!
a ha .. now i get another error …. Fatal Error: Data Error (Cyclic Redundancy Error).. wha tis this?
this is funny … i changed the boot-able CD .. however both were burnt from the same source but the other one worked … funny, isn’t it?
Hi Noman,
This error is most likely relted to the CD/DVD that you’re using. Make sure it’s clean and scratch free. If it is, try to use a different CD/DVD drive (borrow an external one if possible).
Rosco
I have a Dell Precision T7400. In BIOS, there is only ATA and AHCI (no IDE). I have it set to ATA otherwise it BSODs when loading Windows XP 64 bit disk. I loaded SATA drivers from Dell’s website for XPx64 to a floppy but there are too many options. There are about 16 total different options when in the 3rd party SCSI or RAID driver screen. How do you know which one to pick?
Thanks for this. You’re a lifesaver. It was a very big help for me. I used it on a Compaq Proliant ML370 server.
thanks for the support, unfortunately i had phoenix bios on my compaq laptop, nad coldnt find the sata settings, only option for enable or disable, so i disbaled the sata and it worked…
just sharing for future reference…
[...] I’ve written mention using the Recovery Console to help resolve Windows boot errors such as:Windows Setup: Setup did not find any hard disk drives…NTLDR is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restartInvalid Boot.ini or Missing [...]
this worked for a Lenovo T60 on first try. Thank you for the tip.
Thanks Rosco for your post. It worked for me, have dv8000- xp pro.
Changed, SATA native mode to Disable ( don’t have option for ACHI, IDE etc.)
Yep the BIOS option (disable SATA) worked a treat on a HP compaq nw8440 notebook. Thanks very much!
The BIOS compatibility option worked on a Lenovo T60. Thank you very much & God Bless You.
thank you so much.. i didn’t even get the thought of changing ahci to ata.. and now it worked. Thank you! God Bless
Worked like a dream ! Thanks god for geeks
Worked great for me. Thank you.
Top Class, worked for me. Keep up the good work
Gary from Ireland
Thank you soooooooo much… worked perfectly!~
Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you, You’re the man worked perfectly..
I turned off SATA and it worked for me..Thank you!!!!!!
Awesome!!! Thanks a bunch! Totally worked!